A Basket of Food and Flowers by hilloah

I missed a blog last week due to all the work we had to do to wrap up the Living Light Showcase and get ready for a new batch of students this past weekend. We are also participating in being licensed by the State of California which is adding to our paperwork. Fortunately all the students have been willing to initial, sign, and date each and every page that is necessary. Whew! It’s over – until October, our last session this year!

 Once I got home on Saturday after checking in the last bunch of students I just chilled by the pond and read my latest MaryJaneFarm Magazine. The main focus of this magazine is living close to the country – even if in your apartment in a city – and organic, organic, organic! There are crafts, many garden tips, and recipes. It is not a raw food or vegan magazine, but the recipes offered this time around were two vegan, a vegetarian, as well as two standard ways of fixing main dishes. There was an article on Café Gratitude as well. In fact the theme for this issue was gratitude.

One of the articles talked about the gratitude of eating a piece of pie with whipping cream and realizing it all came from the farm: from the neighbor’s milling of his wheat, to another neighbor’s cow who provided the cream (not vegan, sorry), the rhubarb grown by the baker herself. Reading this almost made me cry at the simplicity of food and the true gratitude one receives when eating fresh homegrown foods.

Sunday I picked basil from our yard and made fresh pesto. I also used the garlic that we had harvested earlier this year. We have two kinds of garlic: regular and elephant. I love the elephant garlic as it is a milder form, yet still delicious. Mary Jane had an article about how she grows and harvests her garlic. She also sells the seeds. Archie and I decided to order some – $18.00 per pound. It should come in a week or so, just in time to sow the seeds for next year’s harvest: yummm!!!